When SP ordered tunnel motors SSW got batches too. I’m wondering why Cotten Belt received tunnel motors too since SSW’s territory was in the lower midwest from Missouri to Texas? I doubt SSW had issues with tunnels that SP had. And there are no mountains in the midwest either.
The SP used the SSW as it saw fit. You can do that if you own over 99% of the stock. This was only smart business, nothing evil or untoward.
If the system needed new tunnel motors there was no reason not to use SSW cash for the down payment on some of them, put them under SSW marks, and run them out of Roseville and Los Angeles. SP would provide some GEs to the SSW, and each would lease from the other. I suspect by the time the finance guys got through with it the figures just about ballanced.
There was a time when SSW’s credit was better than SP’s. That is the reason the Golden State line of the Rock Island was bought by SSW rather than SP. Of course the gmnt was happy to loan, IIRC $97 million, of rehab money to SSW rather than to the evil SP.
Mac McCulloch - former SP employee
The Southern Railway System had blocks of engine numbers for its various component railroads–and ran them where it saw fit. Seldom were the component roads identified except by the engine numbers, and you had to know which component used which block to tell which road they supposedly operated on.
Johnny
It has to do with the financing of the equipment and allotment of funds and properties, etc. If part A of the railroad gets a benefit from equipment purchased for operations on part M, then a certain amound of the cost is allocated or drawn from part A. I am sure a CPA or finacier can can explain it.
The Cotton Belt was a cash cow for the Southern Pacific. Cotton Belt owned 94 Tunnel Motors and had not one tunnel.